Respawn builds a Thunderdome for banned Titanfall cheaters

Respawn has made their policy on aimbot users public, as well as the rules surrounding what happens when you’re caught being a cheat in Titanfall. The good news is that you aren’t banned from playing the game. The bad news is that you are banned from playing with people who aren’t also cheating.

For as long as there have been first person shooters, there have been ways to cheat in order to artificially do better in the game. What starts out as an innocent “IDDQD” cheat or a casual flick of the router switch to avoid a bad round being added to your account, quickly becomes a slippery slope that leads to expensive aimbot software that auto-targets and eliminates fellow players.

This is a problem with few solutions, and almost all of them end in being banned from online play. Now that we’ve got online-only games gaining in popularity, some game creators are looking for alternative solutions to just flat out banning people from a game they paid for. Respawn, for example, has made it so banned players can continue summoning Titans and performing physics-bending parkour maneuvers, but when you do so you’ll be up against nothing but other people who have been banned.

If you are guilty of such a heinous crime, the next time you fire up Titanfall you’ll notice “FairFight cheat detected” in your HUD. This is your cursed mark, a branding that lets you know you’ve been removed from the general population and moved to the Thunderdome. You’ll only be allowed to play with other cheaters from here on in, and if you join a party with friends that aren’t cheating you’ll only be dragging them all down to your level. As soon as they kick you from the group, however, they will be able to go back to playing with regular players.

If you feel that you’ve been unfairly sentenced to this special little Titanfall hell, Respawn has set up an email address so you can plead your case.

This isn’t exactly a unique move, but the public manor in which Respawn is addressing the situation is perfect. They also create a situation where most of the cheaters will continue playing, which in the end is still good for Respawn.